Robert Archibald published the first firm detection of an anti-glitch in a magnetar. An anti-glitch is a sudden decrease of the rotation period of a magnetar (a neutron star with a very large magnetic field), by opposition to the frequently-observed glitches which are sudden increase of the period (spin-up). This discevery can have important implications for the understanding of the internal structure of these extreme objects .

Guest:Lucy Fortson (U. of Minnesota). While Lucy’s initial research interest were focused on high-energy astrophysics, she joined the Zooniverse collaboration (initially the GalaxyZoo project), an online citizen-science project. We discussed what the project its challenges are, as well as some of the science that resulted from it. If you are interest in joining one of the projects of Zooniverse, visit their page and select a project.

Guest:Victoria Scowcroft (Carnegie Observatory). We talked about her involvement in the Carnegie Hubble Program, a project dedicated to the measurement of the Hubble constant by calibrating the steps of the distance ladder.